Main navigation

User account menu

Chuck Palahniuk, fully Charles Michael &quot;Chuck&quot; Palahniuk

American Novelist and Freelance Journalist with movies including Fight Club, Choke, Snuff, Romance

Author Quotes

Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space.

You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.

You don't have ideas when you're sitting in that sort of sterile little place, and you're not around people. The most boring scenes are the scenes where a character is alone. I just need that dynamic of other people around me to get my work done.

You kill strangers deliberately so you don't accidentally kill the people you love.

You think maybe if you just work harder and faster, you can hold off the chaos, but then one day you?re changing a patio light bulb with a five-year life span and you realize how you?ll only be changing this light maybe ten more times before you?ll be dead.

You're doomed at being you.

Which is worse: Hell or nothing?

Without true chaos, we can never have true peace.

You can kill a lifetime without feeling anything but skin.

you ever been trapped in a world where you're everyone's worst nightmare?

You know how both life and porno movies end. The only difference is life starts with the orgasm.

You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound You don't win with a lot of treble. This isn't about quality. It's about volume. This isn't about music. This is about winning. You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line, and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword. You dominate. This is really about power.

You're not getting this back you know. Consider it an asshole tax.

Who you are moment to moment is just a story.

Women are already born so far ahead ability-wise. The day men can give birth, that's when we can start talking about equal rights.

You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.

You ever wonder if Adam and Eve were just the puppies God dumped because they wouldn't house-train?

You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways.

You will always have some excuse not to live your life.

You're safe because you're so trapped inside your culture. Anything you can conceive of is fine because you can conceive of it.

Why do I do anything?' she says. 'I'm educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct any fantasy. Explain away any goal. I'm so smart I can negate any dream.

Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave.

You can say anything if enough people will listen.

You ever wonder when god's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce?

You know that old phrase ?Those who don?t remember the past are condemned to repeat it?? Well, I think those who remember the past are even worse off.